Book Openers

Wendell Berry on the American Flag — and the Countryside for Which It Stands

May 2, 2012 By Barbara Falconer Newhall Leave a Comment

Car rusting on Mt. Tamalpais hillside, Marin, CA. Photo by BF Newhall

A car rusting on a Mt. Tamalpais hillside, Marin county, CA. Photo by BF Newhall

“There is no sense and no sanity in objecting to the desecration of the flag while tolerating and justifying and encouraging as a daily business the desecration of the country for which it stands.”

Those are Wendell Berry’s thoughts on the discarded trash — the scraps of plastic, the soiled diapers, the flimsy lamps and hair dryers, the refrigerators, stoves and automobiles — that blight the American countryside:

Wendell Berry’s thoughts were published in an article, “Waste,” in the May issue of The Sun. The article is from Berry’s essay collection, What Are People For? published in 2010 by Counterpoint.

Filed Under: Book Openers

Joan Chittister: The View from the Second Half of LIfe

April 17, 2012 By Barbara Falconer Newhall Leave a Comment

Joan Chittister. Photo by Ed Bernik.

“I looked back over all the open meadows and tangled underbrush of my life and knew in an instant that whatever had been, it had been right. Where I had been born was right, how I had lived life had been right, even all its wrong parts had been right . . . ”

– From Joan Chittister’s new book, Following the Path, which goes on sale today.

Following the Path: The Search for a Life of Passion, Purpose, and Joy, by Joan Chittister, Image, 2012, $18, hardcover, eBook $9.99.

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: following the path, joan chittister, the second half of life

Writers Grotto Writers Bask in Their Three Minutes of Fame

March 24, 2012 By Barbara Falconer Newhall Leave a Comment

Lauren Patti, a short memoir

Some thirty writers and storytellers took the mic — for three short minutes each – to share their works in progress Friday evening at Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building. The writers had been taking classes in memoir, young adult fiction, the short story, personal essay, storytelling and the novel at the Writers Grotto.

Jon and I took along our trusty camera, and we got pictures of quite a few people as they read. Among the crowd pleasers were Oliver Williams’ short story about a little boy who could fly, Lauren Patti’s memoir about being short (which she is), and Chris Caldeira’s short story about — let’s call it penis envy and leave it at that.

We storytellers had a blast telling our stories; we’re pretty sure we made our teacher, Jeff Greenwald, proud.

Photos by Jon and Barbara Newhall

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: book passage, chris caldeirs, jeff greenwald, lauren patti, oliver williams, writers grotto

Why Meditate — When I Could Be Sweeping the Garage?

January 24, 2012 By Barbara Leave a Comment

My husband Jon, in a quiet moment. Photo by Barbara Falconer Newhall

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

I’ve tried meditating a few times – a very few times. I’m well read on the subject, however. Indeed, I’ve spent way more time reading about meditation than I’ve spent doing it.

Why would I want to just sit there observing my mind, I reason, when I could be outdoors pulling dead blossoms off the shamelessly prolific rhododendron in our front yard? Those blossoms snap off their stems with such a satisfying pop.

(I do nothing to make that plant bloom. Yet year after year it sucks up dirt and rainwater and blasts dozens of grandiose purple-blue blossoms into our tiny front yard. Hardly anybody notices this plant or its outrageous flowers. It produces them anyway.)

So – why would I want to just sit there, meditating? I could be calling my son [Read more...]

Filed Under: Book Openers Tagged With: bloomin' newman, don't miss, meditation, sylvia boorstein, thomas merton

Book Openers: How’d He Get an Audience with Her?

November 22, 2011 By Barbara Leave a Comment

A very convincing cardboard Pope Benedict blesses the crowd -- and Barbara

By Barbara Falconer Newhall

Yes. That’s me with the Pope.

OK, he’s cardboard.

But I’m real.

The cardboard Pope and I were at Moscone Center West in San Francisco on Saturday afternoon for the combined conference of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature.

He was at the Ignatius Press booth touting the second volume of his Jesus of Nazareth series to the scholars and grad students attending the conference.

And I was all over the place that day and the next pitching my books to the very helpful editors who were there to display their books.

Lots of books. It was a book lover’s feast.

The Pope, btw, is a lucid, compelling writer — but to read him you’ll need a taste for good, old-fashioned, conservative Christian theology.

His books sell pretty well. Of course, as the head of a biggish, global church, Pope Benedict has a heck of a platform. No worries there.